Let's All Hate Toronto

TORONTO (Reuters) - The dislike of Canada's biggest city, Toronto, in the rest of the country runs so deep that a filmmaker has made a documentary about it.

"People in Toronto are soulless, one-eyed corporate zombies," Joey Keithley, of the Vancouver punk band D.O.A., says in the film, "Let's All Hate Toronto."

The 73-minute film, which premieres at Toronto's Hot Docs documentary festival next week, follows a character called Mister Toronto, who embarks on a cross-Canada trip brandishing a sign that reads "Toronto Appreciation Day" and steels himself for the onslaught.

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AT: Having lived in NYC, I'm fully aware of the varied reasons why some people hate it--and one can clearly see parallels between it and Toronto. As world cities, Toronto and New York are more similar than dissimilar. But the question I wonder about--and I hope the producers of Let's All Hate Toronto captured--is the racial aspect of the hate. Toronto--like New York, London and other world cities--are immigrant meccas with hugely diverse communities of color. To the folks in the hinterlands, these populations are foreign. Given the fears and prejudices of people everywhere, it's probably true that a core of the folks in the hinterlands loath their version of Toronto.

BTW: I love Toronto.